On May 9th, design agency COLLINS explored their shiny new look for The Sims at First Round New York. The new designs were first shared by COLLINS on Instagram back in February as a part of the series’ 25th anniversary. It included a new logo, a couple of mockups, and perhaps most excitingly, a spectacularly sparkly new plumbob animation.
So, what happened at First Round?
Nick Ace, the agency’s Chief Creative Officer, presented The Sims’ keynote at First Round. Each talk at the event was a 30-minute presentation of materials that the speakers had shown a client the first time they “shared a design exploration”. Which, in the case of COLLINS, just so happened to be The Sims.
Footage from the talk reached social media. Etozheden, also known as The Sims Stuff, shared a video and images on X (AKA Twitter) of the keynote. He mentioned that they were videos from around the internet offering a peek into the rebrand.
The first part of the video included audio, which alluded to a project blending Simlish together with Latin characters. Seemingly, this referred to a font, as a part of blending “the digital and physical world”. This could mean a lot of things, but considering the tag shown in the brand mock-up, it could possibly be a part of physical items like merchandising. But that’s just speculation. This was suggested to come out sometime in around “a month and a half”.
Later parts of the video didn’t contain audio and included Boomerang-style footage like you might expect to find on Instagram. But the footage still offered some interesting insights into the talk, like pack-specific logos for Snowy Escape, Jungle Adventure, and My First Wedding Stories, plus some slides of promotional copy.
Did COLLINS launch the full The Sims rebrand at First Round?
Not necessarily. Something that’s important to bear in mind is that what we’re looking at isn’t necessarily the final product. It might not even be much that made it into the final branding.
As mentioned, First Round is focused on materials that were shared with a client early on in their relationship. Often, these explorations can be proposals, or may undergo a huge number of changes to align with client expectations before reaching any final stages. They can even be scrapped altogether before launch.
That’s not to say that there isn’t still some interesting information shared at the keynote, though. For starters, some work is clearly here to stay, given the content shared on COLLINS’ Instagram. The logo shared is the one in action now and, frankly, that new plumbob seems too pretty to waste. Secondly, it’s probably safe to say that something else is coming, given the talk mentions that something is coming in the next month relating to Simlish.
What’s The Sims Lotus, then?
This is where things get a little less clear. In one of the images shared online, what appears to be a draft hierarchy is pictured. Or, it’s some kind of graph, at least. At the top is another big green plumbob, followed by five other logos branching off of it in the style of a tree chart. From left to right, the five branches are The Sims 4, The Sims “Lotus” (sic), Sims Store, The Sims FreePlay, and The Sims Mobile. The left is labelled as full management, while the right says integration/governance.
Without audio or video footage, it’s tough to say exactly what this is communicating in context. But, the mention of The Sims Lotus is pretty eye-catching. What is it?
There’s speculation kicking around the internet on what The Sims Lotus might be, going back to at least 2021. Although, it’s a little harder to find now. A thread on r/TheSims5 made by Redditor PhattieBean provided a useful roundup, plus a couple of theories about the project. Both this thread and an interaction on X speculated that it could be as simple as an older name for Project Rene, a standalone title in the Simsiverse which is currently under development.
However, it doesn’t seem like this is the case. JackOfAllGames replied to the image noting that Project Lotus and Project Rene weren’t necessarily the same things, citing internal knowledge. The thread goes on to mention that Project Lotus was the title of pre-production work setting out what a secondary or spin-off game in the franchise could be, alongside The Sims 4.
Okay, but… The plumbob?
The plumbob footage is included in COLLINS’ social media posts about the rebrand, on both X and Instagram, so it seems pretty likely that that’s going to make up some part of the branding. It’s not made clear exactly what part it’s going to play overall, but based on speculation alone, it looks like the loading screens for The Sims 4. Despite that, we won’t know until it launches.
In the video shared on instagram, the plumbobs are spinning rapidly and changing colour alongside their background. They cycle through the classic green, to red, to amber, much like a dysfunctional traffic light – or, like my Sims having mood swings when I forget to feed them. Whatever it’s teasing, it looks really great.
